


Sakura Saber

by KuzAnn



Category: Zoids (Anime & Toys)
Genre: Bit is an oblivious ace, Former invisipair cause now this fic exists HA!, Hanahaki with a ghostly twist, Harry is a bi disaster, M/M, Now it's just a rarepair, There's two ghosts knocking about and everyone's being a goof as usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 08:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19353133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuzAnn/pseuds/KuzAnn
Summary: The so-called rivalry between Bit and Harry has ended, but things get complicated when Harry realizes that he's developed feelings for Bit. To make matters worse, a wandering urban legend and her Zoid have decided to get mixed up in the whole affair, one that could get downright deadly if she's not found out in time. Will Harry be able to confess his love, or will the pale Saber leave another misfortune in its wake?





	Sakura Saber

It started out as a rivalry, with the assumption that Bit was after Harry’s girl—he wasn’t, Leena didn’t interest him at all—and duels declared for her hand. They moved past that eventually, after a few odd adventures and repeated proof that Bit had little interest in anything other than Zoid battles. That had been a relief to Harry when he figured it out, but now...

Well, whether or not there was a rival for Leena’s love didn’t matter so much anymore.

Months of rejection had finally taken their toll: Harry got the hint. _Embarrassingly_ late, but he got it nonetheless. He left Leena alone, with a long written apology for the fact that it took so much time for him to figure things out, and instead he started to visit the Blitz Team simply to drive away his own loneliness. And the Blitz Team—to his surprise—objected far less to this than to when he had visited simply to pester Leena. That was a relief, and they even started to visit him more and more often in return. Leena was aloof at first, which he expected, but even she started seeing him as just another part of the crew after a while. That, or she didn’t want to be left out of the fun.

Either way, Harry was just happy to have company.

But of course, things had to go sour eventually... It seemed that ‘dumb luck’ was never really on his side when it came to romance.

It happened on another one of Bit’s little adventures—day expeditions to explore natural places or curiosities, something that had become commonplace ever since Bit returned from his post-Royal Cup vacation. He’d dragged Harry along as usual, not that Harry could complain. Bit had a knack for finding interesting places, and he did make every little trip special in its own way. They were perched atop a plateau, watching the sun set over a stunning series of red sandstone canyons, and Harry happened to glance over at Bit.

The light was falling just so across his face and bangs, and the way his eyes were even now upturned toward the shifting sky...

Something clicked. Harry’s cheeks colored ever so slightly at the realization, and he looked away before Bit had the chance to notice. He wasn’t... Expecting this. He’d had no idea that he could even be attracted to guys before now. It wasn’t like you could go very wrong with someone like Bit, though. At least as far as Harry was concerned.

Bit was up-front, honest; lying didn’t seem to be something that came naturally to him, or something that he enjoyed doing. Harry appreciated that. Picking out a lie was not Harry’s forte, and he was terrible at telling them convincingly himself. You didn’t have to be on-guard for that around someone like Bit. His impulsiveness could get him in trouble at times but it also made him spontaneous, got him to improvise. And he was kind, in his own way. He didn’t have to include Harry in anything, but he still did, still found excuses to bring him along and to show him new things.

The blush deepened, and Harry pretended to scratch at his cheek in an attempt to hide it.

“Guess we should head back soon,” Bit said as the sun started to disappear behind the horizon. He glanced at Harry and did a double-take. “Hey, did you hurt your face?”

Harry leaned away as Bit leaned in for a closer look. “N-no, uh, I just picked up a scratch somewhere on the way here and didn’t notice until now! I’m fine!”

“Oh, do you want me to take a look?” Bit asked, the concern plain on his face. “I have a first aid kit if you need.”

“It’s fine, it just itches a little, it doesn’t even hurt,” Harry said with a wave of his free hand, feeling grateful for the deepening semi darkness that would eventually hide the blush for him.

“Well okay,” Bit said, looking a tad confused by Harry’s behavior. He sat back to watch the last of twilight’s color drain from the sky and uncover the stars in its wake. “Time to head back I guess.”

* * *

Something stirred among the foliage behind them, silent and unnoticed as the two got up and returned to their Zoids. She tracked the Dark Horn as it turned to follow Liger Zero down the nearly-invisible track that led off the plateau.

_“Someone interesting.”_

She drifted out of the stand of bushes without stirring a single leaf or twig, the hem of her dress hovering several inches above the ground. Hana was a gaunt specter, her mouth lipless and her eye sockets empty from a slow, withering death among the elements. It had been a long time since she’d last happened upon someone who might be a kindred spirit.

A white Saber Tiger materialized beside her and turned to watch the retreating Zoids as well. It was worn, miserable-looking affair that had almost completely gone to pieces before finally petrifying in the end. The honor of falling in battle had not been an option once its pilot was dead, after all. Such was the way of things among some Zoids.

The Saber Tiger looked down at Hana and opened its mouth in a soundless question that only her ghostly ears could hear.

 _“Perhaps_ ,” Hana replied. 

They had been alone and wandering for so long, a new traveling companion would be most welcome.

* * *

Harry paced the floor space in front of his bed, trying to figure out how he wanted to handle this. He couldn’t let this be a repeat of what happened with Leena. The proceedings would require care... _Finesse_ , even. Especially with the fact that Bit had never shown any romantic interest in anyone as far as Harry knew. That was... Not encouraging. At all. He’d have to find a way to confirm whether that was the case, without giving himself away or insulting Bit in the process.

 _Please don’t be a Leena repeat._ The blush was back, but this time it was more from embarrassment than from any fuzzy feelings. In truth, realizing how badly he’d messed up with Leena had knocked him off-balance for a long time, so much so that he was still trying to put his confidence back together even now. He was far more cautious now than he was back then.

The room was cold. It was a detail that escaped Harry, even though the room’s climate control should’ve kept things at a constant mild temperature.

He kept pacing, focused so intently on his thoughts that he didn’t notice someone else in the room until he almost walked into them. Harry jumped with surprise and stumbled back the moment he noticed her—then looked up and noticed everything else.

Harry opened his mouth to scream, only to have it die before it could escape. He struggled just to take a step back, his body starting to shake uncontrollably even as it refused to get him the hell out of here like he wanted it to. A cough and another faltering step back were all he could muster as the ghost stared at him.

She smiled—never a good sign—and rushed him.

There was no time to run. Harry put his arms up around his head to defend himself and screwed his eyes shut.

A bone-chilling wind rushed around him, seemed to go _through_ him, and he staggered back a few steps. Harry shuddered and opened his eyes. He was alone again, but the room seemed to be getting darker around the edges, as if the shadows were following him. Harry took a step forward and nearly fell as his knees started to buckle. He staggered the rest of the way to his bed, his knees growing weaker and weaker all the while, and managed to collapse onto the comforter before his legs gave out entirely.

Fresh panic set in as he tried to lift his head and found that he couldn’t move at all. What was going on? Had that thing—that ghost—done something to him? Something whispered at the edge of hearing, and darkness closed in until he could see nothing more.

* * *

It was morning when Harry snapped awake, Benjamin and Sebastian standing over him and looking as worried as a pair of robots could possibly look.

“Finally! Thank goodness!” Sebastian said as he leaned back.

“We’ve been trying to wake you up for thirty three minutes, Harry,” Benjamin added for explanation. “We were really worried.”

Harry let himself slide off the bed into a seated position, wincing as he rubbed the back of his neck. He definitely slept wrong for it to be hurting like this. “What happened last night?”

“We were hoping you’d tell us,” Sebastian said. “We came in this morning and found you half-sprawled on the bed, we were about to call a medic when you finally woke up.”

“I guess I had a nightmare?” Harry began; recalling what happened last night was proving difficult, and the details were hazy. He stared blankly at the floor as he tried to remember, but the only thing that surfaced in any clarity was the chilling fear as something unstoppable came for him. Harry sighed. “I dunno, either a nightmare or that sleep paralysis thing?”

“Sleep paralysis?” Sebastian said as he and Benjamin shared a glance. “Very odd, you didn’t eat any later than usual and you haven’t been missing sleep lately.”

“Was there anything out of the ordinary about yesterday that you can remember?” Benjamin asked.

“Well there was—” Harry stopped short as the rest of the sentence tried to choke him with embarrassment, and his face turned a deep red as he covered it with both hands.

“Oh boy,” Benjamin said, no doubt having caught on to the romantic implications of such a reaction.

“This better not be about Leena, Harry,” Sebastian said, shaking a finger at him.

“No it’s not!” Harry snapped, his voice muffled by his palms. “It’s not about Leena, okay?”

“Who could it be, then?” Benjamin wondered aloud, tapping a finger against his visor.

“In that case I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Sebastian added reassuringly. “Why don’t you tell us?”

“You’re just gonna judge me again,” Harry mumbled, lowering his hands and staring at the floor.

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Sebastian admitted. “But Leena was... Not the best match for you, Harry,” he added. “We just want you to be with someone who will treat you well.”

“You were out with Bit yesterday, weren’t you?” Benjamin cut in, making Harry flinch as he hit the mark.

There was a pause as the two processed his reaction.

“It’s Bit, isn’t it?” Benjamin asked.

Harry half-rose, then let himself fall face-down onto the comforter and screamed into it.

“I’d say that’s a yes,” Sebastian said. He paused to consider the match. “Bit’s quite the improvement over Leena, though. _Leagues_ above.”

“Why get so upset over this, Harry? Bit’s a nice guy and it’ll probably be a great match.”

“Because I don’t know if he even likes guys _or_ romance!” Harry replied, lifting his head off the bed so they could hear him clearly. “How am I supposed to find that out without sounding like a total creep?”

“You could just ask him—” Sebastian began, but Harry cut him off.

“And ruin our friendship by making things _awkward_? I can’t do that!” Harry let his head flop back onto the bedspread.

Benjamin and Sebastian groaned.

“So what are you going to do, then? Just sit on this until the end of time?” Sebastian asked, putting his hands on what served as his hips.

“No!” Harry slid off the bed again and sat on the floor. “I just gotta be smart about this.”

“How so?” Sebastian asked, though by his tone he wasn’t expecting much.

“Well, I still have to figure that out!” Harry declared, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I’m not gonna just go ask him out and ruin everything like I did with Leena!”

“Oh dear...” Benjamin said. He paused to think on it. “Why don’t you just have _us_ find out?”

“How are you gonna do that without him being weirded out?” Harry asked, sounding more tired than angry now. “That’s not a normal thing for a pair of robots to ask someone.”

“Okay, fair,” Benjamin admitted. “But it’s a work in progress, we’ll think of something.”

“We’re _trying_ , Harry,” Sebastian added. “We want you to have a shot with him.”

Harry drooped. “I know. I just don’t see how this is gonna work.”

“Just give it time,” Benjamin said, giving Harry a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Something will come up or one of us will find a solution, it’s not gonna stay like this forever.”

“Just pretend like things are normal for now,” Sebastian added. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll work up the courage to just ask him about it while the two of you hang out.”

* * *

As it turned out, the next opportunity came up that very same day when Bit arrived at Harry’s base—without warning as usual, not that Harry minded that anymore—and asked what Harry was up to.

“Oh, nothing much,” Harry replied, just barely able to keep his voice from cracking as his heart tried to flutter its way out of his chest like an excited bird. Yes, he remembered this quite well from when he was first smitten with Leena, and here it was happening all over again. “Just reading and stuff.”

“Cool. You mind if I join you? Leena’s kinda been giving me a hard time today, I needed to get away for awhile,” Bit said, fidgeting by scratching the back of his neck and looking sidelong at the wall; his teammate’s behavior was a point of embarrassment with him at times, especially now that they were Class S.

“Sure!” Harry said, perhaps a little too quickly. 

Bit let out a sigh of relief and smiled, lowering his arm and meeting Harry’s eyes again. “Thanks, I owe ya one!”

Harry led the way to his library—though he was sure Bit knew the way himself by now, he’d visited so often at this point—and the two of them settled in one of the ground floor reading nooks, taking a pair of easy chairs that stood next to each other. 

It was a nice room, as far as personal libraries went. Nothing compared to his father’s library back home of course, but it was the perfect size for Harry and had become one of his favorite rooms once bothering Leena was permanently off his list of things to do. The outside wall was almost entirely window and gave them plenty of natural light to read by during the day, stretching the entire height of the open two-story room and with the balcony stretching across it as well. Shelves reached all the way to the ceiling, with rolling ladders granting access to everything both on the floor and on the balconies above. The deep red carpet still looked almost new despite the increased foot traffic in recent months, and it helped that Benjamin and Sebastian were very strict about keeping it clean.

Despite his lack of formal education, Bit could be quite the reader when he slowed down long enough to pick up a book. Today he was interested in history, namely a book that had reconstructed what scant details remained of the Ancient Zoidians and their final days as the Death Saurer brought about the end of their world. He eventually kicked off his shoes—Sebastian was adamant about keeping them off the upholstery—and brought his knees up, sitting back against the cushions so he could rest the book’s spine between them as he read.

Harry did what he could to keep his attention focused on his own book, but his gaze inevitably drifted over to the chair beside him where Bit was reading. He watched the subtle shifts in Bit’s expression as he read, the way his eyes widened or his lips parted slightly when he got to a particularly interesting—or horrible, given the book’s subject—part. The blush came back, and Harry tore his eyes away and slouched down in his chair so he wouldn’t be tempted to stare, holding his book mere inches from his nose.

_Should I ask? But how do I do it?_

Thoughts buzzed around Harry’s head as he sat there, the book acting more as a means to hide his face than as something to be read.

 _Maybe something like, “Do you like guys?” ...No, no, that’s too forward. Then maybe... “Have you ever dated someone before?”_ Harry sat up a little. _Yeah, that might work! Now to just..._

Harry sat up and lowered the book, finding that Bit was still oblivious to the inner conflict going on right next to him. His courage failed him the first time he opened his mouth to ask Bit the question, so he closed it and returned to his book. After a few moments Harry took a deep breath and tried again. “Hey, Bit?”

“Hmm?” Bit rocked slightly as Harry’s voice interrupted his reading, and he looked over at him. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“Um...” Harry’s voice wobbled as his courage threatened to fail him again, but he pushed through regardless. “Uh, s-so, do you like guys?”

_NO YOU IDIOT! THAT WAS THE WRONG ONE!_

Bit sat up so he could properly face Harry and tilted his head to one side, lifting an eyebrow in plain confusion. “Like as friends, or...?”

“Ah, n-nevermind!” Harry said quickly, waving the question away. His stomach was already doing its best to tie itself into a nausea-laden knot; this was turning into an absolute disaster. “I was just uh, thinking aloud! Yeah, that’s it!”

“But you specifically got my attention to ask it,” Bit said, starting to get a tad concerned.

“Well that was because I, uh— _oh dear is that Sebastian calling for me I’d better see what’s going on bye!_ ” Harry fled the library before Bit could say anything in reply and stopped just beside the door. He wanted to kick himself, cry, and crawl under a rock all at once, how could he have been so stupid as to blurt out the wrong question like that? Thank goodness Bit was oblivious to that sort of thing, but it was still a close call. Harry let out a miserable groan and rested his head against the wall.

“Harry, what’s wrong?”

Harry looked up to find Sebastian wheeling over to him from the length of hallway past the library.

“Isn’t Bit still here? Why aren’t you with him?” Sebastian continued, coming to a stop in front of Harry. “Ah... Did something happen?” he asked, noting Harry’s dejected posture.

“I’m doomed it’s never gonna work I’m gonna make a fool of myself and it’s gonna be just like it was with Leena all over again I can’t take this,” Harry mumbled as he let himself slide down the wall to a kneeling position on the floor.

“What is _wrong_ with you?!” Sebastian demanded, putting his hands on his hips as he looked down at Harry. “You used to be the most confident guy in the world when you were after Leena so what’s so different now?”

“That’s exactly why! I wasted months acting like an idiot, I can’t let that happen again!”

“Well you’re already doing better by stopping to think about it, but you’re letting hesitation take over and that’s not going to get you anywhere.”

They both fell silent when the door to the library opened and Bit stepped out to check on them. 

“Oh, hey Sebastian,” Bit said as he walked over to them. “What’s goin’ on? Harry said you called him for something.”

Sebastian looked at Harry, then back at Bit. “Just a little trouble with Harry’s family, is all,” he said. As a quick lie it was believable, since Bit had frequented the base often enough to pick up on the fact that Harry and his father still didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything.

“Oh,” Bit said, very much concerned now. “Is everything okay?”

“We sorted it out, don’t you worry,” Sebastian said with a reassuring wave of his hand. “I’ll bring snacks around if you want to go back to reading.”

“If you say so,” Bit said, though by his tone he wasn’t entirely convinced. He offered a hand up to Harry. “C’mon Harry, forget about what your old man said, he’s probably just blowing hot air as usual.”

Harry’s face went several shades paler and he turned his face to the wall. _Father’s gonna kill me if he finds out I fell for a junk dealer turned Zoid pilot! What am I gonna do?!_ Things were bad enough without being reminded of his father’s constant disapproval, but the man would probably go ballistic if he ever found out about this. A tremor shook Harry’s body and he broke out into a cold sweat as his mind ran wild with potential consequences, most of them bad at best, dire at worst.

“Man, what did he even say to get you like this?” Bit asked. He crouched down next to Harry and offered his hand again, giving Harry a reassuring smile. “Come on, you’re not gonna fix it by agonizing over things like this. Let’s just take a deep breath and calm down.”

It was really remarkable how Bit had a knack for being wise at times, without intending to be at all. Harry forced himself to take a deep breath and turned to look at Bit, who was still offering his hand.

And then it turned into an entirely different problem.

Harry stared at Bit’s outstretched hand. _Okay just... Take his hand..._ He reached for it, only to hesitate at the last moment. _But he doesn’t know, is it taking advantage of him to do this? No, that’s silly, he’s just helping out, he doesn’t_ mean _anything by it! It doesn’t mean anything!_

Bit watched Harry’s indecision with growing concern. “Uh, Harry...? You okay?”

They were both interrupted by Sebastian, who grabbed Harry by the back of his shirt and hefted him to his feet.

Harry stood once his feet were under him and straightened his shirt as Sebastian released him, giving the robot a dirty look but feeling a little grateful to have the decision taken from him all the same.

Bit stood as well, still a tad confused about what was going on. “So... Should we go back to reading or...” he said, pointing toward the library door.

“Yes! Let’s do that,” Harry said, doing his best to put on a smile.

“Right. I’ll be along with snacks shortly,” Sebastian said. He turned and started down the hallway, leaving Bit and Harry alone again.

Bit kept an eye on Harry all the way back to their seats, and continued to glance at him once they were settled in again.

Harry was still drowning in embarrassment and pretended not to notice the extra attention Bit was giving him. Thankfully the book he’d chosen was big enough that it covered his whole face when he held it up, and he slouched down in the chair to make himself as difficult to see as possible.

“Hey, Harry.” Bit marked his page with one finger and sat up to look over at Harry, draping his free arm over the arm of his chair. “What did he say to you? He’s not gonna try anything, is he?”

A pause, as Harry thought of what to say. The truth just seemed easier and this entire runabout situation already felt exhausting. Might as well give it a try. “It’s more about what he _might_ say...” Harry said miserably, lowering his book and sitting up a little but still unable to look Bit in the eye.

Bit’s eyes widened. “Did something happen?”

“Um...” Harry paused to take several deep breaths, his face already starting to flush again. “It’s because—” he stopped short as he tripped over the exact wording he wanted to use, his heart racing as he stared blankly at the page in front of him. This was a bad idea, it would never work, it couldn’t be that easy. Bit would laugh or he’d be creeped out and then he wouldn’t want to talk to him again and Harry would be down a friend, and he didn’t have many of those to begin with. He couldn’t afford to lose even one. “Because I—” the next word died before it could reach his mouth, seemed to catch in his throat. Harry coughed, trying to ease the strange tightness that was trying to squeeze the air out of him.

Something caught at the very end of the inhale. Harry dropped his book and hauled himself to an upright position, covering his mouth while he coughed.

Another fit followed the first, then a third.

It should’ve stopped by now, but it just kept going, and getting worse. Harry slid down to the floor, his eyes streaming and face completely red, each breath a desperate gasp to get as much air as he could back into his lungs before it was all forced back out again.

Bit was at his side—a nice but nearly inconsequential fact in the face of Harry’s immediate problem—one hand on Harry’s shoulder and his face pale with panic as he tried to think of what to do about the situation.

Harry’s ribs and chest ached from exertion, and darkness hovered at the edges of his vision. Someone else called his name, and after the commotion of a loaded platter falling to the carpet Sebastian was at his side too.

Finally it started to let up, and Harry was able to get in a few shuddering breaths between the lingering bouts. There was a reedy wheeze to every breath he took, and even without the coughing to interfere his lungs still felt tight and his throat raw.

Sebastian gently wrapped his fingers around Harry’s wrists and guided him to an upright position, using the easy chair as a support for Harry’s arms and head. “Take it easy for now, deep breaths,” he said as he released Harry and leaned back.

Harry closed his eyes and did his best to put everything else out of his mind, focusing only on his breathing. His whole body felt heavy and his senses dull, and his throat was positively on fire from the abuse it just received.

In the background Bit and Sebastian talked, but their voices came to him as if they were some distance away.

“What happened, Bit?”

“I don’t know, we were talking, and then all of a sudden he just started coughing like crazy and it kept getting worse.”

“He didn’t have anything he could’ve choked on?”

There was a pause as Bit shook his head. “No, we didn’t have any food or anything in here. I dunno, maybe it was dust?”

“Unlikely, we keep this place impeccably clean and it doesn’t look like you tracked any in yourself. And besides that, Harry has no history of asthma.” There was a quiet whir as Sebastian turned to look down at Harry. “He might be getting sick, but other than a little incident this morning we haven’t noticed anything that might indicate an incubating infection.”

“What happened this morning?”

“Some sort of disturbed sleep event, we’re not sure. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him for now.”

* * *

“Harry’s sick?” Brad asked, looking surprised. Bit had found him lounging in the tactics room with a cup of coffee on a nearby table.

“I dunno, Sebastian said he might be, but he seemed fine other than the coughing fit,” Bit replied with a shrug. “They told me to leave anyway just in case.”

“Why worry about it? It’s not like Harry can’t afford to go to the doctor,” Leena said dismissively, leaning against the ground floor railing as she watched Bit and Brad. “It’s probably nothing and he just needs to sleep it off.”

“Yeah well you weren’t there,” Bit said, giving her a glare. “It got so bad he almost passed out, that’s hardly nothing.”

“Hope he improves then, but it doesn’t really seem newsworthy.” Brad picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “I’m sure Benjamin and Sebastian would warn us if they thought he was really contagious.”

“Well, it’s not the only weird thing that happened over there today,” Bit said as he lifted one of the base’s small maintenance tablets. “We saw this Zoid on the way back, some kind of white Saber Tiger. Liger got a recording and I copied it off him so I could look at it again.” He brought the video up with a few taps of his finger on the tablet’s surface and watched it play for a few moments.

There was the Saber Tiger all right, stalking along the entrance to a canyon that Bit and Liger Zero had passed. Now that he didn’t have the initial shock of spotting it to contend with, he noticed the level of damage it had sustained: cracked caps, broken cables, the shoulder armor missing from the right leg, no back-mounted weapon, and a jaw that appeared to be at least partially unhinged.

“Dunno what’s so special about a white Saber Tiger,” Brad said, putting his coffee back down on the table. “It’s not an unheard of color on them.”

Bit’s eyebrows drew together as he watched the Saber Tiger move down the canyon and disappear. “Yeah but, this one shouldn’t be moving with the shape it’s in,” he said. He then restarted the clip and turned the tablet around so Brad could see as well.

Leena moved over to them and leaned over the railing to get a look herself.

The clip played, and Brad’s eyebrows came down as he focused on the Saber Tiger. “Yeah, it should’ve undergone a System Freeze a while—” he was cut short when Leena swatted the tablet out of Bit’s hands.

“ _Leena!_ ” Bit shouted as he dove for the tablet—no doubt Leena would do her best to make it out as his fault and then Doc would make him pay for it, adding even more to his current debt. “What’s your problem?!” he demanded, the tablet in his arms as he got to his feet.

“You know that stupid ghost stuff freaks me out!” Leena snapped, glaring at him from her perch on the railing. “You’re just trying to scare me again, aren’t you?” she added, pointing an accusatory finger at Bit.

“You’re the one who decided to look at it!” Bit snapped back, having long since lost all patience with Leena earlier that day. “Besides, ghosts don’t exist! It’s just a wrecked Saber Tiger on the loose!”

“Sure sure, keep telling yourself that,” Leena said, nose in the air and arms crossed over her chest. “Don’t come crying to me if it follows you home the next time you—” she stopped when she realized what she was implying. Leena gasped, eyes widening with horror. “Oh no, what if it followed you here? What if it’s already haunting us?” She sank to the floor, close to tears. “First the Chainsaw Man, now some creepy ghost Saber, I can’t do this again!”

“Calm down, Leena. There’s no proof that this thing’s actually a ghost,” Brad chided as he took another sip of coffee. He sighed, his expression darkening. “It’s probably the Zoid of some scumbag who decided to tweak the System Freeze settings to get more work out of it. Must’ve run off rather than put up with that kind of abuse, or it was abandoned out in the wastes and it finally decided to move on.”

“You think so? Then we gotta go catch it!” Bit declared.

“It’s lucky to be around Harry’s place, he probably wouldn’t mind a white Saber for his collection and he’s definitely got the bucks to fix it up. Not the most exciting life for a Zoid, but it’s an easy one,” Brad said with a shrug.

“Y’hear that, Leena?” Bit said, looking to her. “It’s just some poor Zoid with a bad owner, you’ll see as soon as we catch it.”

The raw horror and fury in the look she gave him was not terribly reassuring. “I swear I will blast you into next week if you bring a ghost back here,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Well good thing it’s not a ghost, then,” Bit said, making a face at her. “We’ll just take it to Harry’s place if it makes you feel better, that way we don’t have to risk Doc pawning it off before we can help it.”

“Well then, what’s going on in here?”

They looked up as Dr. Toros stepped through the main door and joined them on the lower tier.

“Just talking about a beat up Zoid I saw on the way back,” Bit replied with a shrug.

“Bit found some stupid ghost Saber, Dad! Tell him to leave it alone before it comes after us!” Leena howled as she turned to them.

“Ghost Saber?” Doc lifted an eyebrow. “Never heard that one before.”

Brad sighed. “Just show him the video, Bit.”

“Fine,” Bit said. He restarted the clip and held the tablet so Doc could see.

Doc leaned down to watch, an amused smile on his face as he focused his attention on the clip. The smile slowly dropped as the video reached the end, and he straightened. “Looks like a wrecked Saber Tiger to me, should be easy enough to catch in that state.”

“I’m telling you that thing’s a ghost!” Leena declared as she got to her feet. “And I’m gonna prove it!”

“What, you gonna go catch it?” Brad asked incredulously.

Leena froze, mouth still open as she reconsidered her plan. “No! I’m gonna go do research and show you that it has some nasty ghost story attached to it!”

“Whatever,” Bit said, rolling his eyes. “In the meantime we’re gonna go catch it and get it some help.” He turned to Brad. “Hey Brad, you think the Shadow Fox’s net gun would work without hurting it too much?”

Brad closed his eyes as he considered the question. “The net gun doesn’t do much physical damage, it’s more about interfering with the Zoid’s mobility controls and movement. Should be fine.”

“All right! Sounds like we got a plan!” Bit said, doing a fist pump. “Let’s start early tomorrow, we’ll catch it before it leaves the area.”

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Junuve, FlameRoyalty, and Ciphernetics for reading through this and giving me their thoughts! ;D And for being the only other people on the BitxHarry ship! Love you guys! <3


End file.
